WBBL09 final: Inside story of how Adelaide Strikers made three consecutive WBBL deciders
Adelaide Strikers have gone from WBBL also-rans to a powerhouse which has made three straight finals. TIM MICHELL finds out how it happened.
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The emergence of Adelaide Strikers as a WBBL powerhouse can be traced back to WBBL05.
The Strikers had just missed finals for the third time in four seasons when they deployed part one of the recruiting strategy which has underpinned an era in which they have reached three consecutive finals.
Rather than chase an immediate fix by prioritising big-name internationals, the Strikers set about identifying domestic talent to complement their local stocks.
Katie Mack was near the top of the recruiting hit list.
The ACT batter was coming off a tournament where she scored only 90 runs for Melbourne Stars.
Her first as a Striker was even less noteworthy, facing 61 balls for 56 runs.
But this signing was about much more than the scorebook showed.
It represented a new direction and strategy — targeting locals with upside to form the core of the Strikers’ first championship-winning team.
THE COACH
Luke Williams has been at the helm of the Strikers since 2019.
Elevated from an assistant’s role, the former Redback has built a reputation as one of the country’s top coaches in the past four years.
Williams has led Royal Challengers Bangalore in the inaugural season of the Women’s Premier League, been an assistant at Southern Brave in The Hundred and developed a culture in Adelaide which has made the Strikers the envy of the WBBL.
“The effort and the respect that Luke is held in by that playing group sees them transition from format to format really easily and really well. And they understand clearly what their roles are,” Strikers general manager Tim Nielsen said.
“They have played together for three, four or five years now and really one, enjoy playing with each other and two, trust each other and understand what’s going on.
“It’s been not necessarily a slow build, but a build over that period that has seen us get to a stage where in the last three years we’ve been able to play in three finals and hopefully now it’ll be winning two of them.”
Assistant coach Nicole Bolton adds: “They’re extremely well led by Luke. He’s a fantastic coach, the players want to play for him. He really understands the girls and has got really great relationships with his players.”
Williams has been nominated as one of the Coach of the Year finalists at this year’s SA Sport Awards.
The respect he has garnered and the way he has unified South Australia’s female programs suggests he is an Australian coach-in-waiting.
THE STALWARTS
Megan Schutt, Amanda-Jade Wellington, Bridget Patterson and Tahlia McGrath have been with the Strikers since WBBL01.
Throw in Darcie Brown, who has been a Striker since bursting onto the scene in 2020, and Adelaide has an enviable core of loyal local talent to build around.
Most are South Australians and are not only invested in WBBL success but the reputation of their home state.
“It’s fair to say that this group has been together over the last 3-4 years and majority of those girls either play domestic cricket for South Australia or have taken on some opportunity with the Strikers,” Bolton said.
“This group doesn’t rely too heavily on getting internationals in to win games of cricket. It’s just about bringing really good people in to the set-up to fill a role.
“And I think the domestic players and Australian girls are exceptional cricketers and have been able to perform at a high level for a long period of time.
“It’s a couple of things but I think consistency of the group, consistency of the staff and then when you start adding in some recent success, it becomes a bit of a habit.”
Wellington is the franchise’s leading wicket-taker (146), with Schutt (134) hot on her tail.
THE IMPORT STRATEGY
Nielsen likens South African superstar Laura Wolvaardt to Rashid Khan for her presence in Adelaide.
The elegant opener has been a mainstay of the Strikers’ top-order since WBBL06 and has scored more than 1500 WBBL runs.
Wolvaardt’s loyalty and the strength of the Strikers’ domestic core allowed Nielsen and his team greater flexibility approaching the WBBL’s inaugural draft.
“She loves coming here. We love having her here,” he said.
“We don’t expect her to be making thousands and thousands of runs. It’s a fickle game, Twenty20 cricket.
“If we can have her calm and sensible approach and she’s an excellent fielder, a good person, a good cricket person. We know what she’ll bring to the table.”
While other franchises would target proven international matchwinners such as Hayley Matthews, Shabnim Ismail and Heather Knight, the Strikers stunned the draft when they opted not to use their first-round pick.
But it was all part of a greater plan.
Adelaide’s list management team had the luxury of being selective with their oversees signings, rather than needing big-name stars to ensure they remained a contender.
“Some teams, I think, probably have to try and find overseas players that they think can win them games,” Nielsen said.
“We hope that we can get a group of overseas players that really fit in well with the people or with the team from a people point of view or teammate point of view. But also skills that are complementary to what we already have.”
They matched a bid from Melbourne Stars for Wolvaardt in round 2 and then plucked English rising star Dani Gibson in the third round.
Gibson might not have been the type of household name other teams had targeted, but she was exactly what Adelaide needed – a seam-bowling all-rounder capable of providing added punch at the back-end of the batting innings to complement Madeline Penna and Bridget Patterson.
The addition of spin-bowling all-rounder Georgia Adams post-draft served to add even more flexibility to Adelaide’s assault on back-to-back titles.
THE KEEPER SWITCH
Adelaide turned Tegan McPharlin’s retirement after WBBL08 into an opportunity to reset its middle-order.
Rather than hunt a replacement keeper, the Strikers entrusted Patterson to fill McPharlin’s void while filling an important role as a middle-order anchor or finisher.
It has proven an inspired move.
Patterson is enjoying her best WBBL campaign and leads the tournaments in dismissals with 21, five more than Brisbane Heat’s Georgia Redmayne.
The added bonus has been freeing up a position in the Strikers’ side which would have previously been allocated to McPharlin.
“(We were) really keen to get a keeper-batter in the top six,” Bolton said.
“Probably a few people looked at us (and wondered) ‘where’s this come from?’
“But in the inner sanctum we’re (not only) really confident in the players that we get into the program, but obviously we’re confident in the attributes that some of our current players can bring.”
Mack added: “She’s been quite exceptional with the gloves and I think she has gotten better and better each game.”
THE DEPTH
Panic isn’t a word which is in the Strikers’ vocabulary.
Reeling at 4-31 and later 7-80 against Sydney Thunder last month, runs from No. 6 batter Gibson (20) and Schutt (16 not out) helped Adelaide reach a competitive score of 7-121.
Wolvaardt contributed 70 of those runs, but without Gibson and Schutt the Strikers would almost certainly have lost.
“The fact is that at different times we’ve probably relied on different people to get us across the line or maintain some competitiveness,” Nielsen said.
“And they have been able to do that.
“So we aren’t reliant necessarily on Tahlia or Megan or any of those Australian players that are well known.
“It’s a really good group, team effort that has developed over the last three years.”
Bolton added: “We pride ourselves on that we bat a long way down.
“That’s a bit of a luxury for us because it allows our top order to play with a bit of freedom. But also in the back end of innings we can also get a hold of some of the bowlers.”
That attitude has served the Strikers well in the absence of their pace trump card Darcie Brown for much of WBBL09.
Brown has only featured twice during Adelaide’s run to the final due to a hamstring injury.
“There was never a thought that, ‘oh no, we can’t win now’,” Nielsen said.
“It was ‘OK, how are going to do it differently? Or who do we rely on?
“Who’s going to take up those overs? They identified that, trained it well, they’ve prepared really well and then been able to execute when it’s counted.”
Former Zimbabwe international Anesu Mushangwe, who took 83 wickets for Glenelg between 2019-2022, has been the bowler to fill the Brown void.
Rather than go with a like-for-like replacement, Adelaide got creative and selected a spinner.
Mushangwe has excelled in her first full WBBL tournament, snaring 16 wickets in 14 games and bowling key overs in the powerplay.
THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON
There is no greater compliment for a T20 team than being compared to the all-conquering Perth Scorchers.
Under the guidance of Justin Langer and Adam Voges, the Scorchers have featured in eight of the Big Bash League’s 12 finals — winning five trophies.
The Scorchers have built much of their success on a strong core of domestic talent, rarely relying on imports to drag them deep into tournaments.
They have also fostered a culture of fierce loyalty, keeping most of the local depth players out of the clutches of rival teams.
Bolton, a WA local who played for the Scorchers, recently made the comparison between Adelaide’s WBBL program and Perth’s men’s team.
“Obviously being a WA girl, I had front (row) tickets to how they go about their business and I just said, ‘this group has got such an amazing culture. It’s really well led with their leadership, their coaching and support staff’,” she said.
“Then they really invest heavily into providing opportunities for their domestic players and their domestic players actually play really pivotal roles for the side.
“They don’t rely heavily on internationals to come in and win games of cricket. It’s more of a collective buy-in.
“I also think that our bowling line is, if not (the best), one of the best going around at the moment.
“I really believe that no matter how many runs we’ve got on the board, this bowling group has been able to defend it. That’s similar to the Perth Scorchers and how they are viewed in the men’s Big Bash.”
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